‘Pryor knowledge' may bring back SEC 0-for

Wednesday

Mar 16, 2011 at 1:15 AM

A couple months ago, Ohio State quarterback Terrelle Pryor and seemingly every Buckeye who made a big play during the team's Sugar Bowl win against Arkansas were living on borrowed time.
Mike Adams, Dan Herron, DeVier Posey and Solomon Thomas will miss the first five games of next season and all must repay any money and extra benefits they enjoyed under the table. Another teammate, Jordan Whiting, must sit out the 2011 opener.
It seemed worth it.
Otherwise, the Buckeyes would've surely fallen to 0-10 against the Southeastern Conference in bowl games, all-time. They were within an Arkansas player's all-thumbs moment after a blocked punt of losing anyway, but scarlet and gray folks got their important win as the Big Ten co-champs edged the fourth-best team from the SEC West in New Orleans.
Now, if NCAA precedents are any indication, Ohio State will have its Sugar Bowl win erased by the actions of coach Jim Tressel, who had his sweater vest ripped and was slapped on the wrist by school officials last week. He still faces the microscope of an NCAA that can be none too happy for the coach's alleged cover-up in what we can dub the “Sweater Mess.”
We'll be back to that 0-for against the SEC once the dreaded vacancy sign slides across the Superdome door.
First, Ohio State made the players in question promise to remain for the 2011 season — so they could be suspended — and allowed them to participate in the Sugar Bowl just days after admissions of guilt for massive wrongdoings.
Now, we understand Tressel had full knowledge that his tattooed stars had done enough to warrant suspension at the beginning of the 2010 season, and turned a blind eye.
Ohio State has countered by suspending him for games against Akron and Toledo, just 40 percent of the suspension time leveled on the star players, who were somehow conned into staying for a 2011 half-season while others with their talent might be playing on Sundays if the NFL labor landscape clears.
If I'm Terrelle Pryor, I'd make myself available for the CFL for a season, make a little spending money, keep my skill set sharp, and head into the NFL draft next April. And the promise would have been kept: He wouldn't leave early for the NFL.
It'd be one of the few things on the up-and-up that's been happening around the Buckeyes football program of late.
ROOKIE CHAOS: It's not enough that the NFL Players' Association will more than likely agree to a rookie wage scale (who cares about the rookies in an established veterans' union?) in an effort to get a labor deal resolved quickly and more pain-free.
Now, they're asking the 2011 class to give up one of the life-long memories that top NFL rookies get to experience?
Players who have already enjoyed the NFL Draft experience are telling the 2011 class, which includes two Heisman Trophy winners and several other players who will help dominate the league for the next decade, to simply skip the draft festivities in an effort to undercut the NFL during one of its marquee functions?
I've worked the draft weekend before. Players in position to get that particular Times Square treatment and be able to enjoy the big party with their family should not be asked to give it up.
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Dwight Collins can be reached at dwight.collins@starbanner.com.

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